


Blur

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bonding, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Possible Drunk Sex, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 10:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS for 1.08 in Summary and fic.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Post-episode, Ward/May. Ward tries to remember what happened that night between himself and Melinda. Hurt/comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blur

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for possible consent issues in that two characters might have had sex while both were very drunk.
> 
>  
> 
> For this prompt at Avengerkink on lj (SPOILERS IN PROMPT):
> 
>  
> 
> Guys, at the end of the episode, when May left her door open for Ward? I want to know what happened after he entered and closed it. Because May said she already relived her worst, most rage-inducing memories every day, and Ward just got his worst childhood experience brought back full force, and I am dying to know how they dealt with it. Quiet drinking? Give-and-take-confessions? May teaching Ward Tai-Chi to deal with the anger? Slow guilty sex? Platonic hugs/cuddling for comfort? Let me know!

Ward’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked around, tried to account for his surroundings. 

A hotel room. He was lying on the floor of a hotel room, covered, for some reason, with a blanket.

He raised himself up onto an elbow and looked around, squinting in the sharpness of the sunlight coming through the window. He saw a woman getting dressed, a dark shirt sliding over a woman’s back.

He was in Melinda’s room, he remembered. No mortal danger.

She was probably only changing because she thought he was still unconscious, so he looked away. It felt better to close his eyes anyway. He lay back down on the plush hotel carpet and tried to will the pounding in his head to go away.

\--

Ward spent the day trying to remember what happened last night.

This is why he hated getting drunk. (One of many reasons.) He always blanked out on a good half of the night, and he always had the weirdest dreams. Worse, it was always hard to piece together which was which. 

He was teaching Skye a boxing move when he remembered something, a flash of a moment. Him sitting on May’s bed, hunched over, head in his hands. May’s hand on his shoulder, gentle, as she refilled his glass.

He had just finished apologizing to Fitz and Simmons (they told him not to worry, it was a biochemical reaction, and went back to work) when he suddenly remembered throwing his glass against the hotel wall, feeling satisfied as it shattered. May had just looked at the wall and then handed him the bottle.

He was going over a SHIELD report on upcoming threats when he remembered sitting next to May on the bed, leaning over, his head falling into her lap as he cried like a child (not that he was ever allowed to cry like that as a child).

It felt odd, all of it, fuzzy and strange. He wondered if it happened or if it was just some dream he had that night, some fantasy that his mind wouldn’t let go of.

He started to wonder if he should start avoiding May. But he knew, unfortunately, that that wasn’t an option.

\--

It was two days later, in the middle of a fight where he and May were taking down four armed guards with hand-to-hand, when Ward remembered something else about that night in the hotel. 

He had told May about the well. 

He had never told _anyone_ about the well. 

Ward put it out of his head and kept fighting. He felt the rage in him still, and he might have hit the guards a little (a lot) harder than he needed to. He still didn’t hit them as hard as May did, though, so no one commented.

When the mission was done, he begged off of group time and went to his quarters. He lay down in his bed and closed his eyed and tried to remember that night. He grew tired soon, and when he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly remembered a conversation.

_“Is that why you always worked alone? Because you can’t deal with not being able to protect people?” May asked. She leaned back against the armchair, probably fairly drunk herself. There was no judgment in her voice, but it sounded like she had already drawn her conclusions._

_“I guess,” Ward said, looking down at the thin line of gold whiskey at the bottom of his cup. “I guess that makes us opposites, huh?”_

_“Opposites how?”_

_“You spent years at a desk job, running away from your strength. I spent years working alone, running away from my weakness.”_

_“Hey,” May said, gruff almost, and finally he looked up. “You not wanting to be a protector? You were running from your strength, too.”_

_He stared at her a long time. Then: “I need another drink.”_

_“Don’t we all.”_

Ward opened his eyes. He was pretty sure – almost completely sure – that this was real. This wasn’t part of some drunken dream. 

He wished he could know for sure.

\--

Technically, it shouldn’t matter what was real, what he said or did in that hotel room. They were both professionals and it wouldn’t affect their performance or their on-the-job relationship.

And if anything beyond drunken confessions happened, then there was no indication that it would happen on any night except for that night. A night when neither of them were sure they would be able to survive the past (again).

So it shouldn’t matter what happened that night, since it wouldn’t have any bearing on the future.

It shouldn’t matter that he starts dreaming of her soon after. That now he dreams of her every night.

Of her lips on him, her teeth softly biting onto his lower lip. 

His hands sliding up the sides of her waist, smooth skin under his fingertips. 

His mouth kissing slowly, reverently, between her breasts.

Her legs wrapped around his waist, powerful as his hand tangled in her hair. 

He thinks that this must be some subconscious desire. He needed someone that night, and she was there, and now his mind won’t let go, it’s transferring all his rather pathetic emotional need into inappropriate sex dreams. Yes, she’s beautiful. Yes, watching her take down a small army is the hottest thing he’d ever seen, and he’d always felt that way. But as a rule, Ward doesn’t obsess over his colleagues. He doesn’t indulge in these kinds of dreams. 

He’s almost positive these are just dreams. Mostly sure, at least.

He knows that he should be concerned. He should wish for the dreams to stop, to release their hold over him. But he spends all day controlling a rage that he barely understands, and for the first time in ages, he looks forward to falling asleep.

\--

Weeks after, he and May were going over a map of the region that they would be infiltrating. There were checkpoints every 500 yards at the border but they already had a plan.

Ward suddenly asked her, his voice almost stammering, “Did I ever thank you for that night? In the hotel?”

She looked at him, eyebrow raised. But then she smiled, gently. “Yes, actually. You thanked me in the morning.”

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“It still happened,” she pointed out. He couldn’t read anything into it.

He nodded and they went back to work.

Ward still didn’t have any answers. Didn’t think he ever would.

But still, for some reason, he felt better.


End file.
